On the night of October 23, 1817 the sailing packet William & Mary , en route from Bristol to Waterford in Ireland, struck a rock near Flat Holm in the Bristol Channel and sank within 30 minutes.

The water was relatively shallow, so as the ship settled on the bottom, ten or so feet of the mainmast remained above the surface, and some survivors were able to cling to it until help arrived. But of the 60 or so passengers and crew, only 23 lived to tell the tale.

What made the tragedy all the worse was the conduct of the crew. It was a clear night, the water was calm and there was a gentle wind blowing, but their negligent and selfish behaviour caused the accident, and was largely responsible for the subsequent loss of life.

The proud legend of British sea disasters would have us believe that women and children were always given priority when a ship went down, but it certainly didn’t happen in the case of William & Mary . Of the 24 women and children on board, not one lived.

One reason for this is that the Mate and other crewmen forced some women out of the ship’s only boat in order to save their own skins. This was after he had caused the accident in the first place by not being at his post because he was busy forcing himself on one of the female passengers.

Or so the story goes. If it’s true, then his description in one account as an “inhuman criminal” is surely a just one.

The William & Mary disaster is now very obscure and largely forgotten. There are few accounts to be found in books or online, and those that are available often contradict one another.

If you go back to accounts from the time, you get the distinct impression that Bristol’s city fathers, notorious for corruption even by the standards of a notoriously corrupt age, engaged in a cover-up to avoid damage to the city’s seafaring reputation.

BT has used reports from Britain and Ireland to try to piece together a reliable version of the events that awful night, but if any of you maritime historians out there think we’ve got anything wrong, please get in touch!

A coloured print of the disaster produced some weeks after it took place. The advertisement for it in the Bristol Mirror newspaper read: "WILLIAM & MARY PACET. To be had of J. Mintorn, College Green, a print representing the loss of this vessel in the Bristol Channel on the night of the 23rd of October 1817; when the greater number of Passengers and crew perished. The print will represent the passengers on deck, just before the vessel sun. TO be had of R. Pollard, Engraver, &c."

The ship that sank with 60 souls on board

We don’t know the exact size of the William & Mary , but assume she was a sloop, a fairly small and agile ship with a single mainmast and a long bowsprit which could carry further sail. Such ships were a common sight around the British coast in the early 19 century and with a good wind they could travel at 12 knots or more, which was fast by the standards of the time. She probably displaced less than 100 tons.

For some years she had been running a regular packet service between Bristol and southern Ireland, usually either to Waterford or Cork. Most of the ship’s earnings were probably from passengers rather than cargo.

On the evening of October 23 1817 she was moored at Kingroad, where she took on the last of her passengers for a journey that promised to be plain sailing.

The passengers were from a wide variety of backgrounds. The richest was probably Pierse Barron, a landowner from County Waterford who was travelling with his three sisters and a servant (and possibly his mother as well – accounts vary). Mr Barron had also brought his carriage, which was now lashed to the deck.

There was an Anglican vicar, the Reverend Sandys, his wife, his daughter Selina, and his niece, Ann Burroughs.

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There was a young army officer, Lieutenant Theballier of the 35 Foot, and his 19-year-old wife. There were two retired army officers, and an Irish barrister named Cliff.

One of the more exotic travellers was John Hayes, an experienced and competent sailor who had been born in Waterford, but had long since lived in America. His later testimony would appear to be among the more trustworthy and authoritative accounts.

As well as these, there were around 40 passengers in steerage, fated, as the poor usually are, to remain obscure. Most, if not all, were Irish and had probably worked in menial and labouring jobs in and around Bristol. Some might have intended to later return to England, but the likelihood is that many more had earned a few pounds and were now going home in the hope of building better lives for themselves and their families.

Instead, most of them would end up in unmarked graves on Steep Holm.

The ship struck hazardous rocks before the crew disgraced themselves

Captain William Manley, an experienced Channel sailor, gave orders to get underway at 8pm. Two hours later, with the ship making a steady six knots in a light breeze, he went below and told the passengers that all was well and that they should get some rest for the night.

At around 11pm, everyone felt a shock “as if the vessel had grounded” and the Captain, who had been asleep in his cabin, called out, “Halloo! What is the matter?”

The William & Mary had struck on the rocks, close to Flat Holm.

Known to generations of Channel sailors as the Wolves or, “Woolies”, these treacherous stones are a hazard to navigation. Though they are only visible at lower tides, anyone with any experience of those waters would have known well enough to keep well clear of them.

Captain Manley knew all about them, but had himself turned in at 10pm, leaving the Mate, John Outerbridge, at the helm.

Outerbridge, too, would surely have been aware of the Wolves, but he in turn had given the helm over to a less experienced seaman named Mills.

By several accounts, Outerbridge had been pestering one of the female passengers and had enticed her to join him inside Mr Barron’s carriage on the deck. She was initially very reluctant, but by persuasion or pressure he succeeded in enticing her into the carriage, and this is almost certainly where he was when the inexperienced Mills ran the ship onto the rocks.

As the Captain came on deck, so did most of the other passengers, all of them in a state of alarm. Manley tried to calm them, but was soon told that the ship was taking on water at an alarming rate.

There were no rules saying a passenger vessel had to have lifeboats in those days. All William & Mary had was a small boat with room for only four to six people.

Three women had already taken to it. Lieutenant Theballier placed his wife in the boat too, reassuring her that she would be safe and that he would be able to swim to the shore.

Now, though, three of the crew tried to take possession of the boat. When the women refused to budge, they lowered it into the water, stem-first, so that it started taking on water. If they did not surrender their places in the boat, they were told, they would be drowned. The women scrambled back aboard and the crewmen took over the boat, cut the ropes and rowed away.

John Outerbridge was almost certainly among the deserters, though he would later claim that he remained with the ship until it sank.

During all this panic, John Hayes, the professional Irish-American sailor, took the helm and with the help of Lt Theballier and some other passengers, put on sail to try and get the ship closer to the Flat Holm shore before she went under; his hope was that he could ground her, or at least that she would sink in shallow water, thus saving the lives of all on board.

As it was, William & Mary sank quite quickly and Hayes went down with her. Grasping a rope under water, he hauled himself up to the top-mast, which remained above water when the wreck settled.

Some drowned immediately or soon after. The Barron sisters, sitting at the stern of the deck, died clinging to one another as it went under.

Lt Theballier had grabbed a rope with one hand and had his other arm around his wife, but she was washed away and he never saw her alive again.

Flat Holm. The William & Mary struck The Wolves rocks to the west of the island and what's left of the wreck remains there to this day. Several of those drowned in the disaster were buried on the island. (Image: Paul Blakemore / Bristol United Press)

Captain Manley, by one account, was slammed against the ship by a wave and, evidently dazed, went under and drowned. He left a wife who was pregnant with their fourth child.

Something over 20 survivors clung to the top of the mast, a few standing on a cross-tree, while others, lower down, remained in the water. Over the coming hours, some of them succumbed to cold and exhaustion. Pierse Barron was seen to sink below the waves.

A Pill pilot boat arrived shortly before 3am and took those that remained to Cardiff where they were treated with great kindness. They included Lt Theballier and Reverend Sandys.

A Bristol boat set off the following morning and recovered many of the corpses. Most of these would be buried in unmarked graves on Steep Holm.

Other bodies, including that of Captain Manley and Mrs Theballier, were found washed ashore on the Welsh coast in the coming weeks.

One of the first corpses to be recovered by the Bristol boat was that of Ann Burroughs, aged 18, the niece of the Reverend Sandys. The whole country was scandalised to learn that her body was recovered from near the wreck, stripped of all clothing apart from her silk stockings. Even one of her earrings had been ripped out. Her body was taken to Bath to be interred in the family vault at Walcot Church.

Public revulsion, lies and suspicion

The first accounts of the William & Mary’s loss were appearing in newspapers all over the country within days. The shocking robbery of Miss Burroughs’ corpse and the negligence, then brutal desertion, of John Outerbridge, appeared prominently in many of them.

According to a Bristol newspaper, Captain Manley was furious with Outerbridge when he came on deck, saying: "You have lost the lives of all on board. I never could trust you. I wish I had a sword, I would run you through."

Outerbridge was evidently back in Bristol by the time these reports appeared and some days later he sent a letter to the press disputing all the reports made about him. He had not been dallying with a woman, he said, but helping her stow a box. He had stayed with the ship until it went under, he claimed. He then clung on to a spar in the water until he was picked up by the men in the ship’s boat and they summoned help from Pill when they got ashore.

“That such a misfortune should happen, no one can lament more than myself. How I am to blame I know not; I was following the Captain’s orders when the vessel struck. It was a sad business, but this is the truth.”

It is slightly surprising that an early 19 century sailor, even a First Mate, was able to read and write at all. The suspicion is that professional help – a lawyer, for instance – was hired, either by Outerbridge or by someone acting for him.

However keenly the loss was felt in England, it was far worse in south-east Ireland, where most of the passengers of all social classes were from. Not long after Outerbridge’s claims were published, they were flatly contradicted by others.

Four Irish survivors, Cornelius Leary, James Kennedy, John Bryan and Florence Donovan (a man), all of them Catholics and labourers, swore on the Gospels before the Mayor of Waterford that Outerbridge had been in the carriage on deck with a young woman when the ship hit the rocks. What reason would such men – all of them Catholics in mortal fear of their souls had they perjured themselves – have had to lie?

Back in Bristol, there has to be a suspicion that many in the local business community preferred that the loss of the William & Mary should be forgotten as soon as possible.

After all, giving the impression that Bristol seamen were both incompetent and were too eager to save their own necks with no concern for women and children, was not a good advertisement.

After some public pressure, an inquiry was carried out at the Council House, presided over by Alderman William Fripp.

Fripp was a wealthy Tory businessman (much of the family fortune came from making soap and candles) and the very epitome of what came to be called the “Old Corruption” of British corporations before the passing of the 1832 Reform Act.

(Fripp would go on to bitterly oppose the Act, though he contrived to get himself elected Mayor after it passed.)

The inquiry took several days and concluded that the blame lay with those in command of the ship, whether the Captain or the Mate. The crew had committed a grave “dereliction of their duty as British seamen, and consequently … a great breach of humanity, in leaving their post at so early a stage of the distress, and when their presence might have been so essentially useful.”

You would have thought they could leave it at that, but there was an “On the other hand …”

The inquiry pointedly added that there was no proof of wilful cruelty on the part of the men (nobody had claimed that there was!) and that their conduct could be excused by their instinct to “self-preservation”.

Fripp is said to have concluded: “The investigation has been very calmly and patiently pursued, and it is hoped that the feelings which actuated the promoters of it will, some slight degree, soothe, though it cannot at all repair the loss, of heal the wounds of the suffering relatives of the unhappy victims.”